The second remake of the same-named film noir of 1949. And for certain the central idea does merit repeating for anyone who missed it earlier: a man "murdered" by a slow-acting and unstoppable poison sets out to find his own killer. This third version sharpens the point by making it plain that the victim (a writer who has stopped writing, a husband who has stopped husbanding and has only to sign the divorce papers) has been "dead" for four years already, and needed to be killed in order to wake himself up to the fact. However, the co-directors, Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel, are at far fewer pains to excavate and display the premise than they are to cloak it, smother it, bury it beneath the fashions of the day. This is in some ways strategically sound, since the underlying story idea won't stand up to too close an inspection. In addition, the transmutation of the hero, a dull white-collar type in his 1949 incarnation, into a dashing but burnt-out novelist and college Lit. professor does yield at least one funny line: "Nobody plots to kill an English professor. They just don't inspire that kind of passion." And the various sneers at the literary and academic communities do gain a certain credibility on the lips of so fidgety, scatterbrained, decorative, and doodly a team of moviemakers. But apart from that, the loftier talk about "passion and purpose" doesn't sound well when coming from the makers of a remake. Dennis Quaid, Meg Ryan, Daniel Stern, Charlotte Rampling. (1988) — Duncan Shepherd
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